TRANSPORT YOURSELF TO THE DISTANT CORNERS OF THE COSMOS AND WITNESS HOW THE UNIVERSE HAS EVOLVED OVER 13.7 BILLION YEARS, FROM THE BIG BANG TO THIS MORNING’S SUNRISE.

Follow the Universe from its humble beginnings and see how galaxies, stars, planets—and all the atoms in your body—were created as the Universe grew. Transport yourself way beyond our Solar System, billions of light-years from home, and investigate the most diverse and beautiful objects in deep space in ultra-high resolution from the world’s most advanced telescopes.

To commemorate your journey through the Universe, send yourself an e-postcard that travels at the speed of light from Neptune, the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Coma Cluster of galaxies. You’ll have to wait about 2.5 million years for your postcard to arrive from Andromeda, but only four hours to receive your greetings from Neptune.

Listen to the Experts

Lucianne Walkowicz is an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. Dr. Walkowicz studies stellar magnetic activity and its influence on planetary habitability using data from NASA’s Kepler Mission. She is interested in the relationship between stellar magnetism (as traced by starspots, chromospheric emission and stellar flares) and fundamental stellar properties like age, rotation and differential rotation. She is also interested in how observations of stars can constrain planetary parameters and habitability, both as inputs to models of atmospheric photochemistry and escape, and as constraints on the system age and architecture.